The Late Nineteenth Century:
Shared School and Leisure, Separate Work

The late nineteenth century brought new shifts in middle-class gender relationships, as the advent of coeducation at Middlebury College and the emergence of college fraternities and sororities reveals. Piety and domesticity mattered less to young men and women in the final decades of the nineteenth century, as mixed-sex entertainment and commercialized leisure gained prominence. Religion, which had been integral to early nineteenth century ideals of masculinity and femininity, became increasingly marginal. By 1900, the single-sex worlds of men and women had been displaced by the emergence of a heterosocial culture. Yet at the same time, the work lives of men and women remained largely separate, as men dominated most public and professional affairs, and women continued to labor primarily within the home.

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